The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey) / quote 199 of 203
Managers consumed by urgent matters
I asked a similar question to a group of shopping center managers. “If you were to do one thing in your professional work that you know would have enormously positive effects on the results, what would it be?” Their unanimous response was to build helpful personal relationships with the tenants, the owners of the stores inside the shopping center, which is a Quadrant II activity. We did an analysis of the time they were spending on that activity. It was less than 5 percent. They had good reasons—problems, one right after another. They had reports to make out, meetings to go to, correspondence to answer, phone calls to make, constant interruptions. Quadrant I had consumed them.